A JOYOUS CELEBRATION

One of the most famous Jewish scholars, Rabbi ben Maimon (Maimonides), referred to the Torah (Pentateuch) as the  “Tree of Life”. A very apt description, considering that amongst many  Jews  this collection of five books is thought of as the very root of Judaism. Many Jews who don’t consider themselves strictly religious, believe that the Torah is the foundation of the Jewish people, and that its moral imperatives are what has preserved Judaism throughout the generations.

Religious Jews read a portion of the Torah (Pentateuch) every single day and when reaching the end - which takes exactly a year - it is celebrated with a Festival called “Joy of the Torah” (Simchat Torah) – which takes place today. Like many of the Jewish customs, it seems bizarre to outsiders. When the famous diarist Samuel Pepys visited a small synagogue celebrating this Festival, he was scandalized!

No one told Pepys  that the day he chose to come to the synagogue was Simchat Torah. Nor had he ever seen in a house of worship anything like the exuberant joy of the day, when the Jews danced with the Torah scroll as if the world was a wedding and the book a bride.

The first word of the Festival “simchah” can also mean “happiness”. There are quite a few differences. Happiness is something long-lasting but joy lives in the moment. Happiness is something you can feel alone, but joy, in the Bible, is something you share with others. Happiness can be a cool and laid-back emotion, but joy makes you want to dance and sing. It is hard to feel happy living in such uncertain times, but you can still experience moments of joy.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote: “In one of the most extraordinary lines in the Torah, Moses says that curses will befall the nation not because they served idols or abandoned God, but ‘Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness out of the abundance of all things’”

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“Joy” is not exactly what comes to mind considering the severity of Judaism as a strict moral code, not to speak of the tear-stained pages of Jewish history. Life, in general, is full of sorrow, pain  and disappointments, but underneath is the wonder that we are here, in a universe filled with beauty.

The English poet Robert Louis Stevenson sums it up very nicely: “Find out where joy resides and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all”